I have NEVER played roto, 5 years of H2H for me. Now, all the people here have convinced me I should try it. I am drafting a team tonight just to see the basic idea of the startegy. I don't actually expect to win the league however sinse its public anything can happen.

Practicing so i can get into competitive leagues that are roto next year will be intresting. However, i still don't really understand thje concept, the idea is clear, but the concept is fuzzy. Please explain it.

Sean Tracey has my apologies, we all know Ozzie Guillen is an idiot. I'm rooting for you!

You basically get ranked for each category that your league uses. If you rank highest in that category (for the season) then you receive the highest number of points. The points you are given depend on the amount of teams in your league.

Example: If you rank highest in HRs in a 12 team league then you will be awarded 12 points. If you are ranked 2nd highest, then you will get 11 points and so on.

I'm sure someone can explain this better than I but I hope that gives you a basic idea.

The most significant difference that I've found between the two types of leagues is that in Roto, it is even more to your advantage to go for the best starters at the expense of a productive bench, since your bench players are not really used (with game and inning limits).

Zito is God wrote:Well, considering I have never played roto i will end up using my standard cheat sheet from H2H, that might change the outcome dramatically as I am sure players are valued diffrently in each type.

Player value is not that much different if the categories are the same. The biggest difference is your ability to manipulate categories in H2H. In an H2H league you can dominate pitching categories like W and K just on quantity, or dominate ERA and WHIP just by having one or two aces and a few good setup men. In a roto league, you must have balance on your team. You can't win if you suck in 3-4 categories.

So the biggest effect is that you have to have a few good starters or you'll get bombed in the pitching categories. Other than that, your H2H cheatsheet should do well for you (if the categories are the same).

I will try to explain the rules. You have your basic 5x5 12 team roto league.

The points system works like this, for each category you are ranked by how well you compare to everyone else in the category. For example, lets take hrs. If you have 25 hrs and that is the most in your league you would receive 12 points, because there are 11 other teams in your league plus you. If your team only had the 6th most hrs, then you would only get 6 points. Note that the stats are cumulative over the whole season. This scoring is used for every category and the teams are ranked by who has the most points.

Some quick pointers of h2h vs roto

Booting a category in roto is much harder than h2h. You deny yourself of more points in a roto than in a h2h so booting is harder.

Sometimes in h2h i have all my bench players as SP, so that i can get more starts in a week than my opponent, and thus win W's and k's, hopefully. In roto you have 1250 IP maximum over the year, so you can't waste your innings. You can still do some matchup starting, but you want to make sure that your studs always start. This makes ratios more important because your innings are limited and you want to ge the best value possible out of you innings. So closers become more valuable (Gagne's numbers were arguably = or better than Prior's last year in a roto league, although that is an argument for another day). Guys like K-ROd are owned in most leagues because of their excellent ratios. Also, the IP limit prevents picking up SP for their start and dumping them after, because everyone is limited IP (roto excells over h2h here).

Enough advice for you, since you are a potential league mate next year

"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
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